Online Public Relations Thoughts

Daily entries on Public Relations and communications ideas and trends

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Class Warfare

President Obama is pandering to voters in excoriating millionaires and billionaires. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney dispatches that talk as the "politics of envy." From a PR perspective, the president has the more forceful message. He is appealing to the largest block of voters who are only too ready to engage in class warfare. Forgotten in the sturm und drang is that most of today's wealthy were once part of the middle class. Through luck and hard work, they rose to the one percent. Most did not go to Ivy League colleges nor did they have a trust fund to fall back on. But no matter. At a time when lower class citizens are hurting, it is only too easy to be envious of those who are not. While Romney might be right in his characterization of what is happening, he is wrong in terms of the message he is sending. Every instance of a millionaire or billionaire behaving badly from now to election day will only heighten Obama's message that the one percent owe the 99 percent more.